I forgot how much i hate awkward first meetings. the ones where you show up at a BBQ with 50 people you've never seen and grab a piece of watermelon to try and pretend like you fit in, only to be spit out of the zoo of people just as quick as you moved in. You try and make it look like you're comfortable eating their cheeseburgers, sitting in their lovesac when, no, you're right, i moved in 37 hours ago and this is my lame attempt to make friends. labor day was great.

i think i might miss the korean party tonight.

I'm really growing to love my roommates though, we lucked out bigtime. It's amazing how different we all are and yet how much each has to offer. Everyone teaches something so different, comes from a different background, had a different college life experience. personality to run the gamat. Life in the penthouse is good :)
Day 2 of orientation and i'm getting a better picture of what the semester might shape into. Yesterday the 11 of us student teachers met up in Crystal City, piled in a minivan and made our way to the city to get fingerprinted. now, it might just be me but i don't understand the reasoning for fingerprinting 3-4 times... i'm sure they've gotta be on file somewhere and my fingers don't change much. whatever, it's their ink.
We took a tour of the Library of Congress which i'd never been in and i loved it! minus a few minor issues that made my focus IMPOSSIBLE, we made our way through the extravegance and beauty of that massive edifice. What i love most about it is when you're there, you can't help but feel passionate about learning. Everything about that place screams of a quest for knowledge, an understanding of this universe, a plea for an end to ignorance. Things haven't changed too much since it was built back in the day. My blood just starts to flow at the thought of filling my head with more and more of the knowledge this world has to offer. i wish it didn't have to involve so much reading. i'm terrible at that part.
Today's orientation consisted of us touring the elementary school some of my counterparts will be teaching at. I'm telling you, there are some of the cutest kids in the world out here. I don't know why anyone would want to be anywhere else. it's a far cry from the schools i attended on many different levels but it was good to see where the kids are coming from that we'll be teaching in the high schools. We go to Ellington tomorrow. yeah baby.
I gotta say my mind is constantly swimming with the possibilities that i could be getting myself into. what will my mentor teacher be like? will the kids be quick to warm up or not? will i be really involved or have to force my way in? what am i doing here? ha, it'll be nice to finally be in there and get some of these answered, anticipation is killer.
Which brings me to the moral of the story, what we're all finding out easy/hard/don't really know how to figure it out way. Flexibility. That's what this whole "DC experience" is about. heck, no one knew where they'd be teachign till yesterday. we didn't get furniture till recently. We've had to work already on changing our views of public schools and throw out some of what's been drilled in our heads for the past 4 years. we know nothing till it actually happens. flexibility is the word. and i gotta say, i love it. i love the spontenaity that makes you think on your feet. it's harder for some to get used to that, to there being little to no structure on which to rest your head, but i LIVE for this stuff. everything is a surprise, nothing is what you expect. once you get that principle in your head, then the unexpected becomes the expected and, at least for a little while, you learn quite a bit.
I remember teaching this lesson to my 6th graders last semester; everytime we'd get kicked out of our classroom last minute (which was more times than i can count on my hands) they'd try to start complaining and i'd tell them, the most important lesson i learned in college didn't come from any of my textbooks. it didn't come through lectures or research. I learned it through living. I learned to be flexible. hands down, that has served me better than most of anything else i learned. let things roll of your back. roll with the punches. adapt. don't be judgemental or draw conclusions on why things are the way they are. give the benefit of the doubt. be flexible. in my world, it's been a must and i'm glad now that i've learned it because i again find myself putting it to use.
Good thing i did that flexibility study with the phys ed department last semester.
So mom, dad, you can stop worrying, life is good. my biggest problem is finding a dang parking spot around the towers. and a carwash amidst this mess of urban living.